The subject matter of the present invention relates generally to alignment apparatus for the alignment of elongated objects, and in particular, to such apparatus which employs impact alignment to align weighed batches of elongated objects prior to packaging. The present invention employs an alignment container with a curved impact wall and a gated discharge output, and is an improvement on the alignment apparatus shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,843,795 issued July 4, 1989 to David Shroyer in that it produces a more compact package of the same weight of comparable objects. The alignment apparatus of the present invention is especially useful in aligning and packaging elongated food products, including French-fried potato strips.
An alignment apparatus is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,514,959 issued May 7, 1985 to Shroyer for aligning elongated objects by transmitting such objects along channels on a vibrating conveyor to partially align such objects before they contact the rear wall of an alignment container so that such objects strike such rear wall with their longitudinal axis at an acute angle. The elongated objects are thereby aligned substantially parallel to the rear wall of the alignment container and fall into such container where they are vibrated for further alignment and compaction until they reach a predetermined weight and are discharged as a weighed batch from the alignment container into a packaging machine. The present invention is faster, less expensive, and of more trouble-free operation than such prior apparatus while also being simpler and less expensive to manufacture. The present alignment apparatus differs therefrom by employing a conventional belt conveyor on which weighed batches of elongated objects are deposited and are caused to become separated by stream-out as they fall onto the moving belt conveyor, such objects being thrown off the end of the conveyor into impact with the curved rear deflector wall of a vibrated first alignment container portion in a substantially perpendicular direction. The elongated objects then may fall into contact with a straight front deflector wall and the majority of such objects are caused by such first alignment container portion to be aligned substantially parallel with the rear wall of the alignment container when they drop from such first alignment container into a second alignment container portion which may be a rectangular tube. The elongated objects fill such tube and are further aligned and compacted before being discharged as a batch of aligned objects by opening a gate at the discharge outlet of such tube which causes them to fall into a packaging machine where they are packaged as a weighed batch of aligned objects.
As is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,478, granted Aug. 26, 1986, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,313, granted May 6, 1986, to Steven C. Maglecic, it has previously been proposed to provide an alignment apparatus for packaging elongated objects after they are caused to free-fall through a tube, resulting in separation and partial alignment. However, these patents do not show impact alignment of elongated objects by projecting such objects off a rapidly-moving conveyor belt into impact contact with the rear wall of an alignment container in the manner of the present invention. In addition, it has been proposed to provide an automatic weighing apparatus for weighing batches of objects as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,693,355 of Bochi, et al., issued Sept. 15, 1987. Also, it is old to provide an apparatus for orienting randomly-distributed objects of a known shape, such as bottles or ampules, using a vibratory conveyor and an orienting device, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,220,238 of Shavit, issued Sept. 2, 1980. Finally, it is known to provide an automatic bagging apparatus for bagging batches of elongated food products, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,842,569 of McClelland, et al., issued Oct. 22, 1974. However, none of these prior art apparatus employ an alignment apparatus for impact alignment of elongated objects by projecting weighed batches of such objects off the end of a rapidly-moving conveyor belt into impact with the curved rear wall of a first vibrated alignment container means and for further alignment and compaction by dropping such objects into a second vibrated container means having a gated discharge outlet in the manner of the present invention.
The present invention has several advantages over prior alignment apparatus, including fast, trouble-free operation which has less jam-ups. In addition, such invention produces packages of weighed batches of aligned, elongated articles which are more compact so they occupy from 10 to 14 percent less volume than prior packages of the same weight, and are of a more uniform predetermined weight. Also, the present alignment apparatus is simpler and less expensive to manufacture than prior apparatus of this type.